Here's an outfit that's similar to something I quite often wear if I'm going out shopping for groceries, a.k.a. 'marketing'. (Truth be told, I suspect the playsuit shown here might be a bit short on me, but I do have and continue to wear a short, faux wrap dress I bought out of Jigsaw in the UK, several years ago now, that's more or less exactly the same colour and is very similar through the sleeves.)

Some tips to remember are as follows:

Except when you're only heading to the gym, always run a quick iron over whatever you're about to wear out in public. Nothing else says 'hot and harassed' so loudly as a badly wrinkled garment.

Consider sealing the clasps on costume necklaces with clear nail varnish. (I don't know if the same is true for anyone else and I know my skin tends to become irritated a lot more quickly over here than it does in the UK.)

Be willing to sit it out under cover or to go barefoot in the event of rain. (I have ruined countless pairs of shoes over the past couple of decades, and refuse to ruin any more. Something else I refuse to do is to wear Crocs anywhere other than to the beach. So...

Aim to vary your look with accessories, particularly if, like me, you're past the first blush of youth. Of course, you want to be wearing an outfit rather than having it wear you, and well chosen accessories can really help to achieve that.

Know that Singaporean women tend to own a lot of handbags. My guess is that they spend rather less per bag than your average European, probably because they don't expect to carry the same bag day after day after day. It's taken me very nearly two decades to get used to this and, finally, I'm of the opinion that ringing the changes can be a lot of fun.

Keep up a collection of thermals, opaque tights, plain coloured tee shirts, scarves and the occasional pair of closed in shoes. You won't need them in Singapore, but you will need them for travelling.

Watch this space for a whole other posting on how to buy/wear shoes in Singapore. It's heaps easier than it used to be and yet still so incredibly difficult, almost all of the shoes I own came from elsewhere.

As I've mentioned before, in Singapore it will be somewhere between 28 and 32 degrees celcius and it will rain someone on the island at some point in the day more or less every single day of the year. If you're going to be walking around out of doors for any length of time, not only do you not really want to be wearing any more than a single layer of clothing, but you want that one, single layer to be manufactured out of something that's reasonably absorbant. Some folk would advise that you avoid man-made fibres such as polyester altogether, but its really only the polyester satins I find to be a problem, basically because it's almost as if they were specially designed to show off how much you're perspiring (and you will be perspiring, believe me; forget anything you were ever told about how ladies only ever gently glow!).

Do you have any tips you're wiling to share on how to make the same items of clothing work regardless of weather? I'm particularly interested when it comes to what layers to add/take off during the actual journey. I mean, who want's to turn up looking completely out of place as they globe trot?